Treatment of HIV-infected patients involves combining drugs from different classes of anti-HIV drugs. One preferred regimen for adults is 2 nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) and 1 protease inhibitor (PI). For children, this regimen may be too complicated or the drugs may be too difficult to take by mouth. The purpose of this study was to determine the long-term safety and effectiveness of daily didanosine (ddI), efavirenz (EFV), and emtricitabine (FTC) in pediatric patients who had taken few or no anti-HIV drugs.